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The Idiot

£9.99

Selin, a tall, highly strung Turkish-American from New Jersey turns up at Harvard and finds herself dangerously overwhelmed by the challenges and possibilities of adulthood. She studies linguistics and literature, teaches ESL and spends a lot of time thinking about what language – and languages – can and cannot do. Along the way she befriends Svetlana, a cosmopolitan Serb, and obsesses over Ivan, a mathematician from Hungary. The two conduct a hilarious relationship that culminates with Selin spending the summer teaching English in a Hungarian village and enduring a series of surprising excursions. Throughout her journeys, Selin ponders profound questions about how culture and language shape who we are, how difficult it is to be a failed writer, and how baffling love is.

In stock

SKU: 9780099583172 Category: Tag:

Description

Discover TikTok’s new favourite book.

I loved it and could have read a thousand more pages of it’ Emma Cline, author of The Girls

Selin, a tall, highly strung Turkish-American from New Jersey turns up at Harvard with no idea what to expect. What she doesn’t expect is:

– How much time she will spend thinking about language and its limitations
– An opinionated cosmopolitan Serb named Svetlana, who will become her confidante
– A mathematician from Hungary called Ivan, whom she will obsess over when she is supposed to be studying
– Feeling dangerously overwhelmed by the challenges and possibilities of adulthood

But most of all, Selin does not expect to embark on a study of precisely how baffling love can be when you are trying to forge a self…
_______________-

PRAISE FOR THE IDIOT:
‘A moving, continent-hopping coming-of-age story’ Observer
‘Elif Batuman surely has one of the best senses of humour…refreshing and unique’ Sheila Heti
‘Full of zingy one-liners’ Financial Times
‘Hilarious, brilliant observations about writing, life and crushes’ Curtis Sittenfeld
Delightful and slyly funny’ Red

Read a sample here

Additional information

Weight 0.298 kg
Dimensions 19.8 × 12.9 × 2.6 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

422

Language

English

Edition

1st paperback ed

Dewey

813.6 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K